


Gifted

by HenryMercury



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Christmas, Crack, Established Relationship, Gen, Humor, I mean like maybe I hope so, In-Laws, M/M, PWP: Proofreading What Proofreading
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-02
Updated: 2017-12-02
Packaged: 2019-02-09 13:26:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12888834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HenryMercury/pseuds/HenryMercury
Summary: Maybe, if he's particularly unfortunate, Lucius will have bought him the new title in Carina Cuttlebrie's wizarding basics series. The year Harry unwrapped a pristine, cloth-bound copy ofPotion Skills for Imbecilesremains one of the less restrained Potter-Malfoy Christmases in his decade with Draco.





	Gifted

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aibidil](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aibidil/gifts).



> Based on aibidil's ideas about [this](https://aibidil.tumblr.com/post/168081372117/kitschatron-when-i-think-of-you-i-touch-my-elf#notes). Everything about this is what I usually DON'T write, so you know it's mostly her fault.

Harry braces himself as he walks down the chilly entrance hall to the Manor. Four sets of shoes clack against the polished stone floors, and even the swishing of robes is magnified by the hard surfaces, the cavernous ceiling. The décor is exactly as it always is, starkly decadent, even though it's Christmas Day and the lunch they're here for is definitely a seasonal occasion, complete with turkey and gifts.

Ah, _gifts_. Harry wonders what it will be this year. Another pot of Sleekeazy's, perhaps—or a voucher for Madame Malkin's? A meeting with a reputable agent of wizarding real estate, to discuss several properties that aren't Harry's London flat. (The flat is perfectly nice, Harry knows. If it wasn't then Draco would never have agreed to move in.) A one-way portkey ticket to- to Australia, or somewhere else far away. Pre-paid membership to a _dating service_. All of these possibilities are based on the entirely passive-aggressive gifts he has been given previously. Maybe, if he's particularly unfortunate, he'll get the new title in Carina Cuttlebrie's wizarding basics series; the year Harry unwrapped a pristine, cloth-bound copy of _Potion Skills for Imbeciles_ remains one of the less restrained Potter-Malfoy Christmases in his decade with Draco.

Narcissa, for her part, always presents Harry and Draco with identical, large boxes of very fine chocolates, for which Harry is genuinely thankful. It's only Lucius who, even when he's 'smiling' across the table, still visibly fumes at any reminder that _Harry Potter_ has ended up his son in law.

Harry's hand twitches at his side, wanting to reach into his pocket and touch the shrunken box that is his gift to Lucius this year. It is _not_ his standard bottle of wine or firewhiskey. If Malfoy Senior insists on treating him like some undereducated, possibly perverted gum he wants to scrape off his shoe, then Harry is at least tired of letting him get away with pretending to be polite while he does it.

"Would you care for a drink, Harry?" Narcissa asks, already motioning for whichever house elf is nearest. Seemingly absentminded, her sequence of gestures are a sign language Harry is a little awed by even though learning to speak it himself is not a priority. There is a constant aloof grace to Narcissa Malfoy, and it only lifts when she looks at Draco, just as Draco's stiffness only melts away when his mother smiles at him. Draco relaxes for Harry, too, and that's never stopped feeling a bit miraculous.

"Thanks," Harry nods, giving the hostess a polite smile.

She doesn't ask him what he wants. Minsy, the elf, produces a snifter of the same whiskey he always chooses.

Narcissa was apprehensive at first, but that was more out of concern for Draco's wellbeing; she warmed to him quickly once it was clear they were both serious about each other. Back then, Harry appreciated her concern, her protectiveness of her son. It was how mothers should be, he knew, and Draco was fortunate to have one who loved him so much. He and Draco were only twenty-year-olds—mere children who'd been told they were adults and had the gall to actually believe it, Harry thinks now. They'd survived a war, barely, and were equally taciturn when it came to admitting the tenderer parts of their feelings. They did, perhaps, need a little help here and there. Now, though... Harry and Draco and their relationship have grown up, and Lucius Malfoy's parental critiques are less than welcome.  

"So, Potter," Lucius drawls, "how goes the auror business these days."

"Quite well, thanks," Harry replies, between sips of his drink. "And the... investment business?"

"Likewise."

"Darling," Narcissa looks to her husband, "why don't you tell the boys about the opera we saw the other week?"

Harry holds in a sigh, and listens to the blow by blow account nodding and asking questions at the right moments because if he appears uninterested it will, in the Malfoy parents' minds, just prove that he is uncultured and unsuitable for Draco.

And sure, Harry didn't grow up learning his dinner fork from his fish fork from his salad fork—he was grateful enough when he was given food and allowed to eat at the table—but he's learned to tell them apart and no longer confuses his dessert and fish forks unless Draco's done something to really irritate him and refuses to talk it out. On those occasions, Harry happily picks up his dessert fork too early and watches Draco wince.

Cutlery conventions may not be important to Harry, but Draco is, so Harry selects his oyster fork whenever oysters appear on the table, and resists the urge to simply tip his back by hand.

"You still haven't told me what's in that box," Draco murmurs, while Narcissa and Lucius are distracted, debating whether it was Felicity Eastaughffe or Viola Bourque who had thrown a particular fundraiser several years earlier.

"It's a surprise," Harry says, as he has done quite a number of times today already.

"Certainly—but _I_ am not the recipient of the gift. Therefore its surprise nature does not depend at all on it surprising _me_."

"What if I want you to be surprised too?"

Draco brings a hand to his forehead, as if suffering an intense migraine for just a second before getting over it. "Then you are a cruel man," he pronounces.

"You wouldn't tell me where we were _holidaying_ last year until we got to the portkey."

Draco rolls his eyes. "Because it was a surprise, Harry! Merlin."

Harry just chuckles, and the subject falls aside as Narcissa appears to have convinced her husband that the party was indeed hosted by Ms Bourque despite taking place at the Eastaughffes' grange.

Draco's thigh presses against Harry's beneath the table, and he tangles his left ankle with Harry's right. No sign of these clandestine little intimacies is visible in his face, torso, and general above-table manner, however. Harry takes the display of indifference as the challenge it is. He reaches into his pocket, finds a spare sickle amongst the fluff and various shrunken objects, and lets it fall to the floor. The silvery tinkling startles the diners.

"Excuse me," he says, voice buttery with apology, and leans down to retrieve it. He steadies himself with a firm hand high on Draco's thigh, and treats himself to a not-so-subtle brush of knuckles over Draco's crotch when he draws it back.

"Honestly, Harry," Draco says, disguising his breathlessness as mere annoyance, "we are wizards. I've seen you summon larger objects from further away with no wand and almost no thought."

Harry shrugs innocently. "It was right there. Not like it was _hard_ just to grab it, you know."

They work their way through the courses, lingering on the turkey which really is excellent. Harry passes his compliments to Minsy each time she appears to check on the progress of the meal.

"This turkey came from the Parkinson Estate," Narcissa tells the table as they tuck in. "Delia Parkinson has apparently taken to raising them, as well as swans and Mallards."

"You should gift her a pair of peacocks," Draco suggests.

"Perhaps, if we ever need a favour from Brutus." Lucius' voice is cold and bored at once. "Not that the Parkinsons are doing much these days beyond raising waterfowl."

"I think it's nice," Harry comments honestly. "People should do things that make them happy, even if they're a bit weird."

Draco breathes out the hint of a well-muffled guffaw, and Harry silently congratulates himself despite the slightness of the sound. Malfoys do not lose their composure at the dinner table. Should the candelabras topple and set the runner alight, a calmly uttered _Aguamenti_ should be cast during an appropriate pause in the conversation.

"I suppose you would know about that, Potter," Lucius says, eyes fixed on his plate as he cuts smoothly into a slice of meat.

Harry's honestly not even sure what he means by it—what Lucius thinks Harry gets up to in his spare time. What he wants to say is _Oh yeah, Mr Malfoy, doing your son makes me very happy despite his incredible weirdness_. What he does say is:

"I think everyone should be a bit less concerned about what other people think of them."

Which, granted, doesn't get a great reception either.

"What are you playing at," Draco whispers. "You're winding him up; what's your endgame?" _Why won't you let me in on the plan, you completely terrible husband_ , adds his insistent stare.

"I just want us to be open and honest with each other," Harry smiles serenely and watches Draco's glare intensify.

"And what good to you expect will come from _that_?"

Dessert is a magnificent spread of mince pies, dense pudding, fresh fruit, and ramekins filled with smooth vanilla-flecked panna cotta. It's so good that Harry nearly forgets what's to follow.

They sit in Harry's personal least favourite parlour for drinks afterwards. It's his least favourite because the only seating options are armchairs, so he has to sit miles away from Draco.

"We have a few things for you, Draco, Harry," Narcissa begins, and waves her hand with precision. Minsy appears carrying a small stack of wrapped boxes.

Narcissa takes two distinctly chocolate-box-sized presents and holds them out.

"Thank you," Harry says, and rips into the wrapping paper. It looks kind of like the wallpaper in some of the Manor's stuffier rooms, if you ask him.

Meanwhile, Draco has already vanished the wrapping paper from around his chocolates. They're hazelnut truffles this year, Harry notes when he pulls the last of the paper off his own. They always get the same kind; Narcissa knows her son, and if they're given different varieties then Draco will always try to steal whatever Harry's got instead of being content with his own.

"Thank you, Mother," Draco says with a smile.

Draco also unwraps a very silky-looking grey scarf, and an immaculate new pocket watch to replace the one that broke its chain while he was flying and hasn't been the same no matter how many _reparos_ are directed at it.

Harry's parcel from Lucius is heavy and rectangular. It's too heavy to be a Carina Cuttlebrie, but there's only so much comfort in that. Harry exposes a deep orange cover, stamped with the silver title: _Investigative Techniques for Wizarding Law Enforcement_.

Harry frowns. The book _is_ relevant to his interests, at least—but it's a first-year Auror Academy textbook and Harry's sure Lucius knows it.

"I thought that looked about your speed," Lucius says, lounging in his armchair across the room while his glass refills itself with swirling golden liquid.

Harry doesn't even answer. He simply takes his own gift out, resizes it, stands and delivers it to Lucius directly. Lucius takes it with a quick movement, looking unimpressed that Harry has chosen to venture so close to him instead of keeping his distance and floating the gift across the room.

Harry holds his breath as Lucius vanishes the wrapping paper and ribbon, leaving only the cardboard box that contains the treasure he'd picked up on a Muggle website half-asleep one three a.m. and dreaming gleefully of the moment to come.

Lucius pulls the mug out of its box, examining it rather as if it's been drunk out of and left for three weeks instead of opened brand new. The china is white, with none of the provenances all the other Malfoy china and crystal has. It's printed with a red block, out of which is cut a row of white-silhouetted houses and a pixellated snowfall. Emblazoned across the entire scene in aggressive capital letters are the words: WHEN I THINK OF YOU I TOUCH MY ELF.

Harry's imagined Lucius going bright pink, the way Draco does sometimes. He's imagined him letting out all manner of surprised noises from the weak and involuntary to the wrathful. He's imagined speeches about how this proves he's unfit to be a Malfoy spouse, an uncouth disrespectful ne'er-do-well whose upbringing has left him sorely lacking in manners of every sort. He's pictures that mug shattering on the floor, pictured himself having to dodge it as it flies through the air.

What he hasn't pictured at any point is Lucius reading the mug's inscription aloud and saying, "Not exactly to my taste."

Lucius snaps his fingers and Minsy appears. "Take this away," he instructs her.

Minsy takes the mug with far more care than she is handed it, looking it over with eyes even wider than usual. She runs a speculative finger around the rim of the mug, clutches it to her chest and disappears with a pop. Harry is unsettlingly certain that the elf is going to keep the mug as a precious artefact.

"I'm not sure what you wanted that little display to achieve, Mr Potter, but I am harder to shock than _that_ ," Lucius says, his self-satisfied sneer audible.

"I'm sure Harry intended only to amuse you, Father," says Draco, and, damn him, Harry can hear the smirk in his voice too. "It isn't his fault his wit is a little on the blunt side. He does well with... well, Muggles call them _dad jokes_ , I believe. Which it turns out may come in handy soon, given that we have been talking about children."

Lucius Malfoy goes _purple_.

Narcissa clasps her hands in properly restrained delight, and begins what is sure to be an unending interrogation about their childrearing intentions.

Harry turns to look at Draco, wanting to quiz him on the timing of his announcement; they _have_ been talking about children, but they hadn't discussed _mentioning it at the Malfoy Christmas lunch_. Not that Harry minds. The spectacle of it is proving to be... well, rather spectacular.

Draco's eyes are already fixed on Harry by the time Harry meets them. _Next time, you'll tell me what you're planning_ , they say.

Harry crosses the carpet to Draco's armchair and kisses him, manners be damned.

**Author's Note:**

> Say hey on [tumblr](http://henrymercury.tumblr.com/).


End file.
